1. Each member of your team should lay out his or her expectations early, and you should all come to an agreement at that time. Doing so at the beginning will help to settle conflicts that arise later about how to proceed with design and construction.

2. You do not have to plan to win the competition or have the most impressively complex design. In fact, you will probably be more successful if you do not. Dr Sirlevson's team decided to create the simplest device that would satisfy the requirements of the competition and distinguish their efforts through impressive and charming appearance. Doing so allowed them to finish the electronics and hardware early, then refine functionality until it was reliable, which led to better performance than teams with much more complex strategies.

3. Your robot will make mistakes, lose its senses and get lost, especially since conditions of the competition are likely to differ from those of the testing area. So rather than just trying to make fewer mistakes, it is a very good idea to decide how you want to respond when they happen.

4. Sensing the environment is very hard. Now reconsider the preceding gem.

5. If it is not broken, do not fix it. If it works well, do not (try and then fail to) improve it. The change you think will optimize your design will break it.

6. Go to sleep! The later you stay in laboratory, the less productive you will be and the more likely you are to mess something up that will take hours to repair. You will accomplish a lot more by sleeping and trying again the next day.